Described below is a system for motor vehicle simulation simulating a virtual environment with a virtual motor vehicle, wherein the system includes a virtual environment simulation system which is designed to produce images of a virtual environment with a virtual motor vehicle. Moreover, the motor vehicle simulation system includes a head-mountable display device which is designed to display the images produced by the virtual environment simulation system. Moreover, the system includes a physical operating element, by which the system is operable by a user for the purposes of configuring the virtual motor vehicle, wherein the virtual environment simulation system is furthermore designed to set a perspective emanating from a virtual site when producing images of the virtual environment, the virtual environment being presented from the perspective. Also described below is a method for simulating a virtual environment with a virtual motor vehicle by using such a motor vehicle simulation system.
The related art has disclosed the use of head-mountable display devices, such as VR goggles, AR goggles, head-mounted displays, and so on, for the purposes of simulating virtual environments. Using these, virtual environments can be presented in two dimensions or else in three dimensions and hence particularly realistically. Hence, there are no limits for creating very different virtual worlds. By way of example, such an arrangement can be used to virtually simulate various motor vehicle models for a user, for example at a retailer, and also to display various configurations of a motor vehicle model. This allows the user to examine motor vehicle models or specific configurations, even if the motor vehicle retailer does not currently have the desired model or the desired configuration in stock.
Here, it would be desirable for the user to be able to operate the controls of the motor vehicle simulation system, for example for the purposes of configuring a virtual motor vehicle, as easily as possible by a physical operating element. However, a problem arising when operating operating elements in combination with head-mountable display devices is that a user who wears a head-mountable display device and to whom a virtual environment is presented is unable to see his physical environment. Known operating elements, such as a mouse, a keyboard, a joystick, keys, buttons, touchscreens or touchpads are consequently difficult to find for a user in the virtually blind state and the elements are also difficult to operate or inoperable. In order to be able to provide an operating option with such operating elements, the user would therefore have to remove the head-mountable display device for operating purposes or, if the display device is designed to this end, alternate between the presentation of the virtual environment and the presentation of the physical environment. In both cases, this interrupts the simulation of the virtual environment and, moreover, is very cumbersome and time-consuming for a user. Although, in this case, it is also possible to resort to operating options which are able to circumvent the problem of the physical environment not being visible, such as e.g. eye tracking systems integrated into VR goggles, the aforementioned problems continue to exist for operating the motor vehicle simulation system by known, manually operable operating elements.